A First Time for Everything

Carrie's had quite a few "firsts" the last couple of days.

We'll start with this weekend. As mentioned in the last post, over the long weekend we got Christmas decorations put up. The day after, I was working on something in the kitchen and Justin was in another room. Carrie was playing with toys in the family room. I could faintly hear some little tinkling sounds, but I just thought it was things she was putting in her doll stroller. I never even turned around.

Until.... CLUNK!!!

Carrie had been walking around the Christmas tree collecting glittery ornaments and when she got around to the back it tipped over! I'm pretty sure it wasn't an intentional push, but just the same, down went the tree... Nothing broke (thanks to my garage sale find of shatterproof ornaments), but I think Carrie learned a pretty good lesson about not touching the tree.

Another "first", as I was getting ready this morning I heard Carrie playing in my closet (as she often likes to do while I'm doing my makeup etc). I started to hear a suspicious scratching sound... I opened the closet door to find her drawing on the wall with a pencil! Where she got it from, I have NO idea! I feel pretty lucky that this is the first occurrence of this (although I'm sure it won't be the last throughout my mothering days), and that the damage was done on the inside walls of my closet. Because it's only pencil I think it'll come off really easily anyways.

Now, I saved the best story for last....

Drumroll everyone!...... Carrie went pee-pee in the potty today!!

Even though her diaper was already wet when I got her up this morning, I decided to see if she'd sit on the potty before I changed her and got her dressed. She sat down and we started to read a book together. About a minute later, she jumped up from the potty and started yelling, "Oh no! Oh no!"

She had gone in the potty and thought she'd done something wrong! I was thrilled and was clapping and cheering while trying very vigorously to tell her, "No, it's ok! That's where pee-pee is supposed to go! Yeah! Good Job!"

Her chosen reward? A banana. :) To her, that's as good as any candy or toy will ever be!

It's still slow going for sure, but hopefully the next time she won't be as scared of it! We're so proud of our big girl!

Black Friday Rookies

We finally did it; Went out in the wee hours of the morning to go Black Friday shopping! Neither of us had EVER been before! We played it pretty safe, only hitting up the local Wal-Mart and being back home in bed only one hour later, but we got a couple of things we really wanted so I consider it a success!

Quick insert first though, let me say HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone! We had a great day with my family in Mesa. First, we went to the movies to see Disney's "Tangled". It was awesome! Cute, funny, great for kids and adults! Then we went to my parents' house and stuffed ourselves with delicious dinner. Carrie decided she wanted to only eat mashed potatoes and jello for dinner :)


OK, now back to Friday morning. We convinced my sister and brother-in-law to come sleep at our house Thursday night so they could babysit in their sleep while Justin and I went out. We didn't really get up all that early. Only 4:30. Sadly, that's what time Justin gets up every day for work. I don' t know how he does it!

When we got there everything in the electronics department was wrapped in black plastic and guarded by employees. All electronics went on sale at 5am and no one was allowed to shop for them before then. There were lines for each individual product. After asking around, we discovered that there was no line for "our" product yet, so we started one. We were the first people in Maricopa to get Walmart's Black Friday deal on the Nikon Coolpix L110!!I'm so excited for this new camera! We had gotten a new camera not quite a year ago, but didn't want to spend a lot of money so we ended up getting a cheap little point and shoot. I was almost immediately frustrated with it. The flash took forever to charge and I felt like the lighting always looked bad in my pictures. Obviously it worked well enough for me to take so many pictures with it over the past little while, but I was really excited to get a newer higher quality camera.

I'm already so pleased with it! I know these next few pictures aren't much to look at, but look at the clarity, lighting and overall quality! I love it!!




This weekend we've also gotten up most of our Christmas decorations. Basically all that's left is the outside lights.



Again, the pictures were taken with my new camera. Isn't the glow of the lights so pretty?! I never could have gotten that with my old camera! It would have either been totally dark or washed out by the flash.

Although it's my Christmas present, we decided that instead of waiting, we'd put it to good use over the next month. I've already wrapped the box to put under the Christmas tree for "the effect" of it being a Christmas present. Already today I made a cover for the strap. I'm giddy about testing it out and learning all the things it can do that my old camera couldn't!

A Pinch of This, A Dash of That

Since I've gotten a little behind lately, this post will be a little hodge-podge. We'll go youngest to oldest. First, we'll start with a Brigham update:

A few weeks ago we had a consultation with a neonatologist at the hospital. The most important part of that consult was not necessarily talking with the doctor, however. We got to take a tour of the NICU. It's HUGE!! They have something like 100 beds.... On top of being huge, it's also extremely nice. Every patient (baby) has a private room. I'm really excited for this because that means while I'm "hanging out" with Brigham, I'll have some privacy and won't feel like I'm always in the way of the nurses.

Last week we met with the pediatric surgeons. Basically the few important points we got from that consult were:

-The surgery does not "fix the problem". It keeps it from getting any worse, but the real problem (what's going to keep him in the hospital for so long) is his limited lung development. Getting all the stomach and intestine back into his abdomen and patching the hole will allow his lungs room to grow and recover, with a lot of help from ventilators etc.

-Babies with diaphragmatic hernias are very very prone to "roller coaster rides". This means Brigham may appear to be doing great for a day or two at a time and then take an awful turn and seem like he's hanging by a thread, only to make another turn for the good. This is really really important to remember as I'll hopefully be updating often on his condition once he's born.

I had an appointment today, but no ultrasound, so sorry, no new pictures of the cutie. I'll have an ultrasound in two weeks and after that, my appointments will start to be weekly. He's almost here!

Next, the latest on Carrie. She's learning so fast it's crazy! I love the silly things she says. For example, she now says, "Wanna hold you..." and reaches up when she wants me to hold her. She loves waffles and calls them "faffles". She's as opinionated as ever and when I'm trying to figure out something she wants, it's not uncommon for me to hear, "no, put it back" a few times before I pick the right thing. She's learning how to do zippers (mostly on her jammies) and loves learning new words like "sock" and "pocket". This morning I was wearing fuzzy slippers around the house and when Carrie saw them she stopped, looked at the slippers, looked at me, back to the slippers.... thought for a second and then said, "kitty!" I guess the fuzziness reminded her of a kitty.... :)

We've loosely started potty training around here. Carrie has a little potty chair in the family room with a basket of books next to it. She's still totally in diapers and I'm not rushing into it or anything. A few times a day she'll sit on the potty, with or without clothes on and read a few books. For now I'm ok with her just getting used to the idea. She hasn't actually gone in the potty yet, but she's getting better at telling me right away when she needs to be changed. She's still really little, but I figured we'd take a crack at it before Brigham comes so she at least has a general idea when we really do it later.

On Saturday Carrie's friend Jake had his 2nd birthday party. We hung out for a couple hours eating cupcakes and playing in the giant bounce-house in the backyard. They had a blast!


Now on to me. There are some days when I feel so tired and uncomfortable by the time I go to bed I whine to Justin, "How much longer?" (meaning the pregnancy). Most days though, I try to remember that I'm extremely blessed with good pregnancies. I'm barely sick the first few weeks, and even that is mostly just nausea. I don't have high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, bedrest, or anything else like that that can make pregnancy miserable for some women. I'm 33 weeks along, stay at home with a 22 month old and (if I do say so myself) keep a pretty spiffy house. Of course I'm going to be tired by the end of the day!


My only real gripe is heartburn. Fortunately that's easily remedied with tums. I did give Justin quite a scare the other night because I woke up at 1am crying in pain. After a few seconds, I realized I was probably freaking him out, and hurried to explain, "It's a charlie horse in my ankle, I'm ok". After a few minutes of trying to stretch it and a few minutes of a heating pad, it relaxed and we were able to go back to sleep. It was awful though....

I finally got cold enough yesterday to turn on the heater in our house. When I woke up and it was 64 inside, I gave in and cranked up the heat all the way to 69 :) It was really nice though to open our electric bill a couple of days ago and see that it had dropped by about 150 dollars from last month (because we didn't have the air conditioner on anymore)! I love Arizona.... I didn't even touch the heater until two days before Thanksgiving.

Last night, my friends in my ward threw me a baby shower and it was awesome! As awkward as it always is to be the "guest of honor", I really enjoyed the party. My family and a few friends from high school were able to come too. The theme was "B is for boy", so everything there had to start with "B"; Bowtie pasta salad, brownies, blue cupcakes, etc. I'm so excited to dress Brigham in all the cute things I got for him! We took some pictures, but the flash was acting up and none of them turned out. If they weren't dark, they were totally blurry...

Last, by certainly not least, Justin. He's busier than ever, now that High School basketball has started this week. He's already done 3 games in the last 2 days. It's his first year as a varsity official and he's loving it! He's getting the opportunity to work with several Junior College officials and his name is getting pretty well known around the Phoenix area. He complains that he's too old because he's sore from his first few games, but I know he loves it anyways.

He's been working out on his lunch break at work for the last couple of months and is getting to be pretty buff :) He sets quite a high standard (by example) for hard work and good looks in this house. He's loving and helpful as always and is on an unprecedented good streak of loading dishes straight in to the dishwasher instead of leaving them in the sink.

On an end note, as we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, I think it would be more than appropriate to list a few things we're thankful for.

- Our house - Justin's job - Good friends - Bananas (Carrie's favorite) - Hobby Lobby - Fox Sports Arizona (go Suns and Coyotes!) - Two functioning cars - Playhouse Disney - Two loving families - Medical technology - The gospel (and everything amazing that comes along with it!)

What's in a Name?

Oh. My. Gosh... I'm pretty sure Carrie is MUCH too young for this.

She knows my first name.... And tries to get my attention with it....

Over the past couple of days there have been several occasions where I've heard, "Becca! Becca! Becca!"... followed by whatever she wants me to do/help her with.

It's INCREDIBLY adorable, and really hard not to smile and laugh while trying to tell her, "You call me mommy, my name is mommy"... What a smarty pants we have :)

FAMILY PICTURES!

We had family pictures taken last weekend in Mesa by our fabulous friend Kevin Beeson. He did an excellent job, as always! I'm so excited! I know they'll be outdated soon, but.... they're cute anyways. Enjoy! :)



My mom was standing behind the camera trying to entertain Carrie to smile. They started to play peekaboo so we all joined in!

Getting Ready for Baby

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment and ultrasound. The only good pictures we got were of Brigham's feet. He had his face totally scrunched into me and wouldn't move! His estimated weight is 3lbs 3oz; right on track. They said his liver looks the same as it did last month, which is very good. It's still just the tip that has come through the hernia into his chest. The less liver that comes up there, the better!

The doctor told me they often talk about me (and Justin and Brigham) when the doctors have their conference meetings together. We're the only case of diaphragmatic hernia they have right now. He said he wished all parents were as emotionally stable about cases like this as we are. We talked for several minutes about how he's glad we understand the severity and magnitude of this birth defect, but we also understand that having a "woe is me" attitude doesn't help anyone.

My mom came with me to my appointment and she told the doctor (and reminded me) of something I'd said a couple of months ago. I wrote on the blog that because of our outwardly calm manner, some of our friends and family were underestimating the seriousness of Brigham's condition. I tried to set things straight (especially by stating the mortality rate of about 50%). The thing my mom really remembered though was that I said, "We know that either Brigham will be okay eventually, but if not, we'll be okay eventually."

I think I need to write that down and put it on my bathroom mirror or something as a daily reminder. I still have occasional bad days where I worry and cry a LOT, but mostly, I'm trying my best to have faith, trust in the Priesthood blessings I've received and pray. I can't believe he'll be coming so soon! Less than two months!

By the time we bring him home, Carrie will be beyond ready to be a big sister and big helper. If we get hurt, she'll ask us "You okay?", and is getting much more "huggy". She loves helping pick out her clothes and hair bow/flower. She loves brushing my hair and getting her hair done "pretty". She's getting to be very helpful at getting things when I ask, ie; diaper and wipes. She's an awesome cleaner-upper, usually without me having to ask. She's changed and grown so much in the last couple of months. Justin asked me last night, "Where did our baby go?" I had no answer.

Putting a baby doll in the booster seat to "eat breakfast". Of course, she has to wear a bib.

This conversation happened last week while we were on our way to Wal-Mart (which she can totally say by the way, it's adorable).

Carrie: "Where's Daddy?"
Me: "Daddy's at work, he'll be home later."
Carrie: "Why?"
Me: "He has to go to work so we can have money."
Carrie: "Why?"
Me: "So we can buy groceries, and clothes and toys and our house"
Carrie: "......(about 5 seconds of deep thought)..... Oh. Cool!"

It was awesome! She's really understanding a LOT and can express herself better and better every day. She's mastered the "big kid" slides at the park and loves being outside. She's learning colors and gets them right probably about half the time. She loves reading books, either alone or sitting on our laps.

A few cute things she's picked up recently:

-Bye! I love you! See ya! (adding the "I love you" to every goodbye is the new part)
-The "why" game (I'm sure it won't be cute for much longer)
-Updown (she knows they're related and has gotten herself confused at which one is which, so she just says them together)

Playing with Daddy at the park this morning. I'm sure she's thinking, "Whoa! You climbed up the slide?!"

Library Adventures

This morning we trekked a mile up the road to the library. Carrie got to ride comfortably in the stroller while I got a full body workout pushing it head first into the wind! I really should have worn better shoes!

Relaxing in style, as usual

As soon as we got there, Carrie was ready to literally jump out of the stroller. She knows exactly where to go in the library to find the kids section. Recently, they've added two kiddie computers that have fun learning activities on them. They have cute little headphones and a kiddie sized mouse. Carrie spent at least 10 minutes having fun on the computer before even starting to look at the books.


Even after picking out a few books though, it wasn't quite time to leave yet. Our library has a little "play" area too with puzzles and kiddie sized armchairs and rocking chairs. Carrie is starting to get very good at puzzles! She still thinks it's funny though to put a piece in the wrong spot, look up at me and say, "nooo!!", move it to a different wrong spot, "nooo!!", and then finally move it to the right spot and cheer for herself, "Yeeeaaahh!!!"


We took "the long way" home through the neighborhood and stopped at the park for a few minutes to go down the slides. It was quite a long morning (round trip about 2 hours!) but we had fun! I definitely tired her out because when we came home, she ate a sandwich, and went right down for a nap!

At 30 weeks and 2 days, I'm starting to be a little tired in general anyways; Add on a 2 mile walk.... I think it's mommy naptime too!

"Mommy! 'S Cute!"

Carrie is picking up on soooo many new words! It's adorable to hear the things she says sometimes.

For example, a few days ago when I come out of the closet in the morning after getting dressed, Carrie came over to me, pointed to my shirt and said, "Oooo!, Mommy!, 's cute!!"

The first time, I responded with a shocked, "My shirt's cute?!" She repeated, "Yeah, mommy! 's cute! I like it!"

Well Okay! :) She does it every couple of days and it really gives me a little boost of confidence especially since lately I'm starting to feel a little like a whale! (30 weeks today, woohoo!)

She's started to put short sentences together like, "I want drink", "Take a bath", or when dinner's ready, "Daddy, let's eat!"

She's reached the age where she enjoys playing with her friends, not just next to them. She loves feeding her baby dolls milk (using her own sippy cup) and pushes anything and everything around in the baby stroller.

She loves talking on the phone and will often find my cell phone, bring it to me and ask to call someone. For example, "Talk daddy?", "Talk UnJake? (my brother Jake)". Usually the person on the other side of the call enjoys a few minutes of conversation from Carrie anyways so it's a win-win!

Every once in a while she'll ask for something with a little whine in her voice for no apparent reason. I'll say, "Can you ask me nicely please?" Her response?.... A cheesy grin, shrugged shoulders and a high pitched, "Ask niiiice?" Works for me :)

She's extremely opinionated, (sometimes overly) independent, loves going on walks, hates the carseat and is so dang cute I don't know how we stand it!